C-Tran sends light-rail sales tax to Clark County voters

View full sizeRandy Rasmussen/The Oregonian/2009 FileThe MAX Green Line at Clackamas Town Center.

As
promised, C-Tran is sending a proposed sales-tax increase for a light-rail line
across the Columbia River Crossing to Clark County voters this fall.

The
transit agency's board approved a plan Tuesday night that asks county
residents – or most of them anyway -- to approve a 0.1 percent increase in the
local sales tax.

If
approved, the tax increase would raise about $5 million a year to fund
the proposed light-rail line and a bus rapid transit project in Vancouver, said
Scott Patterson, a C-Tran spokesman.

Patterson
said C-Tran would need up to $3 million a year to fund its share of a MAX line
extending from Portland into Vancouver across the proposed $3.5 billion
Columbia River Crossing.

Of
course, C-Tran is still haggling with TriMet about how to split costs and where
each agency's service area would begin and end. TriMet says its responsibility
should end at Hayden Island. C-Tran doesn't want to handle anything south of
the state line.

As
a result, there's a no man's land of service that needs to be cleared up before the agencies can finalize
the full-funding agreement for a federal construction grant, Patterson
said.

C-Tran
would own the infrastructure but contract with TriMet to provide service, Patterson said.

In
1995, Clark County residents rejected a proposal to expand light rail across
the river. Of course, that measure included a .3 percent sales tax increase and
a .3 percent hike in the vehicle excise
tax.

"It
was much larger than what we're talking about here," Patterson said.

Revenue
from the sales-tax increase would also help fund a
planned bus rapid transit line on Vancouver's Fourth Plain corridor.

The C-Tran board had promised a
public vote on light rail as part of the often-contentious CRC project, which
aims to replace the aging Interstate Bridge before the end of the decade.

If approved, it would be the second C-Tran
tax increase in two years. If the measure fails, the agency's board would be forced to find
other ways to fund its share of light-rail operations across the CRC.